The opinions were flying last week on our sister site, Sphinn, mostly in two discussions about a couple hot topics across the SEO/SEM industry: black hat vs. white hat labels and industry standards/certification.

Sphinn member David Zimmerman kicked it off by starting a discussion about getting rid of the terms “black hat” and “white hat” to describe industry tactics. That conversation led into our “Discussion of the Week,” which asked Is It Time for SEM Industry Standards/Certification? That conversation currently has more than two dozen comments and, since it’s such a hot topic, here are two comments — one from each side of the discussion, pro and con.

I think SEO is such a grey area, like the Web in general, that knowing where to draw the lines would be a major problem. The Web is like the wild west, and I think I like it that way. In time it will become more organised and civilised, but it has to be allowed to develop naturally.

There is no reason to fear standards. They take nothing away from anyone practicing SEO — but they do give us all something we need: credibility. As an industry, search engine optimization — search engine marketing — has little to no credibility. Standards would vastly improve that situation.

Feel free to add your two cents to that debate now, or read along for more of the most popular stories last week on Sphinn.

Most Comments

Discussion: Is It Time for SEM Industry Standards/Certification? – As an offshoot to the ongoing discussion about the terms "black hat" and "white hat" tactics, some people have brought up the topic of industry standards and certification. In our "Discussion of the Week," let's hear your thoughts more specifically on that aspect of the debate. Search engine marketing has been around for more than 15 years now. Is it time for a set of industry standards and/or certification the way many other industries do? The floor is open.

Discussion: White Hat? Black Hat? Who cares! – I am tired of the labels- black hat and white hat. Sure there are good and bad ways to do SEO but these labels have been rendered useless as pejoratives. Rather than speak in terms of the color of an SEO's headgear, we should instead talk about "risk" – how much risk they are willing to take. But it's not really about how risky an SEO is- what is more important is the riskiness of their specific techniques. What do you think? will you join me in dropping the headgear pejoratives and start describing specific techniques as risky or not?

Whitehat SEO Is a Joke – Are whitehat SEO's nothing more than snake-oil salesmen? Is practicing whitehat SEO little more than wishful thinking? Kris Roadruck from Click2Rank thinks so and outlines why practicing whitehat tactics hardly ever gets anyone to the front page of the SERPS.

Most Tweeted (not already listed above)

How Google Instant’s Autocomplete Suggestions Work – Comprehensive information from Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land: "It’s a well known feature of Google. Start typing in a search, and Google offers suggestions before you’ve even finished typing. But how does Google come up with those suggestions? When does Google remove some suggestions? When does Google decide not to interfere? Come along for some answers."

Why Attention is the New Currency Online – You need to deliver high value content regularly instead of just sharing the same content as someone else. So how do you differentiate yourself in a space full of re-hashed content? First you need to understand and optimize your content for online browsing and reading.

Is Facebook A Fad? What social networks will look like in five years. – From Farhad Manjoo at Slate: "The big question for the future of social networking isn't whether Facebook will be the largest and most influential site five years from now. It's whether it will be the only one. Will Facebook be the exclusive catalog of our interests and relationships, or will it coexist with several others?"

WordPress Plugins Security Flaw – A Blackhats Dream – WordPress is a used every day in this industry. This information is important to review if you are suggesting WP or building WP sites for clients. "…then I thought of scaling it. The result? Well using a simple flaw in WordPress Plugins, and some clever strategy, I could sit back and game 100,000’s of relevant links to my sites, and control them all from one place."

Please Exit The Link Building – An excerpt: "Bad “link builders”, managed and supported by the terrible SEO Managers that love them – go to Google and mindlessly search. “KEYWORD links”. “KEYWORD resources”. Find a contact e-mail. Change keywords, find another e-mail. Random input in the Google toolbar. Check a PageRank or two. Brag about how high the PageRank of their link was. Repeat, repeat, repeat."

Newspapers and Social Media: Still Not Really Getting It – Another good read by Matthew Ingram on how newspapers in particular seem to have a difficult time with journalists interacting on blogs and social sites like Facebook and Twitter. They get publishing and curation, but they still just don't get social.

How To Use Events as Goals in Google Analytics (V5) – Nice guide to enhanced goal and conversion tracking for the new GA. – Google Analytics (Version 5 Only) now allows you to use events as goals. Events as a goal type…why does this matter? Well, because you can now track more types of site interactions as goals.

What Does Local Product Availability on Google Place Pages Look Like – Yesterday, Google announced that merchants could now include local products directly on their Places Page. This is part of a long term trend to provide significantly more granular and time based information about local businesses on-line. This has long been part of Google’s local vision that has finally materialized in a way that local merchants can now take advantage of.

The Difference Between Web Reporting And Web Analysis – "I know it when I see it" says Avinash Kaushik, and of course he has more on the topic: "If you see a data puke then you know you are looking at the result of web reporting, even if it is called a dashboard. If you see words in English outlining actions that need to be taken, and below the fold you see relevant supporting data, then you are looking at the result of web data analysis."

Technical SEO: Tools and Approach – Adam Audette explains which technical SEO factors matter for rankings. Guess why some of the best SEOs in the world are highly technical people…

SEO for online journalists – Article from Mark Nuney of Wordtracker. A how to of SEO for journalists.Great to have your news writers clued up about SEO

About The Author

Matt McGee is the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. After leaving traditional media in the mid-1990s, he began developing and marketing websites and continued to provide consulting services for more than 15 years. His SEO and social media clients ranged from mom-and-pop small businesses to one of the Top 5 online retailers. Matt is a longtime speaker at marketing events around the U.S., including keynote and panelist roles. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. You can reach Matt via email using our Contact page.

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